Winners of Economics Nobel for 2024 have helped us understand differences in prosperity between nations and importance of rule of law.

Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt have been jointly awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences with Joel Mokyr ‘for having explained innovation-driven economic growth’. Aghion and Howitt were cited by the Nobel committee ‘for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction’. As this column explains, their work transformed creative destruction from an evocative metaphor into a rigorous analytical framework. The Nobel recognition honours research that has fundamentally transformed how economists understand the engines of prosperity and technological progress.

Joel Mokyr of Northwestern University has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences with Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt “for having explained innovation-driven economic growth”. Mokyr was cited by the Nobel committee “for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress”. This column, written by two of his students and now fellow scholars, outlines how his work has reshaped our understanding of virtually every fact and theory associated with industrialisation – from the mechanics of machine design and production processes to the intellectual and political forces that changed entire societies. One core message of this extensive body of research is particularly timely: economic progress is critically dependent on open intellectual inquiry, on the free exchange of ideas, and on a vigorous defence of scientific principles.